The smoke coalesced into four hideous spectral forms that advanced on Our Heroes in a decidely non-friendly manner. Jim gave a little shriek and bolted for the chocolate hole, but was intercepted by one of the wraiths which thrust its hands deep into his chest, freezing his heart and (eventually) possessing his body. "This body really sucks" thought the spook to itself, "but what the heck, at least it's a body". His master Barsh came in for the same treatment shortly afterwards.
Justin flailed away at one of the spectres, but found that his weapons had absolutely no effect on it and so concentrated on ducking, diving and dodging. The possessed Jim attempted to attack him, and Justin found that his weapons did appear to have an effect on Jim's poor battered puppet-body; he resisted the temptation to chop bits off him and settled for bludgeoning him into immobility, and then did the same for Barsh. A fair and equitable distribution of clobbering was received by all of the monastics in the room, though naturally being superior in rank, Barsh was entitled to a little extra pummeling.
Meanwhile, Vallana had noticed that a skull among the bones and detritus in one of the corners that the wraiths had appeared appeared to have jewelled eye-sockets, and in a spirit of experimentation she smashed it to bits with her morning-star. One of the spectres evaporated with a piercing shriek, and she immediately alerted everyone else before being attacked and possessed by one of the remaining ghostly sentinels. She (or rather, her driver) charged across the room and shoulder-barged Justin into the wall.
Since Jim, Barsh and Tallis were all unconscious, and Justin too hard-pressed by the possessed (and distressingly well-armoured) Vallana and the single remaining ethereal spook to be able to do anything other than dodge, only Pandora was left to seek out and smash the remaining three skulls. She did manage to dispel the creatures before Justin and Vallana were forced to kill each other by the expedient of hovering over each of the skulls in turn, and turning a convenient rock into a plaque of lead, dropping it on to the ancient and brittle bone and releasing her possessed companions from their enthrallment.
Never one to miss the main chance, Justin retreived the jewels from the enchanted skulls' eye-sockets, finding them to be fine cabochon-cut opals.
Clare was late to the session, so rather than complicate matters we just left her unconscious until she arrived.
Once all the excitement had stopped, Tallis woke up. "Where am I? What's been going on here?" she asked, and was filled in on the excitement of the previous few minutes.
After a brief period of R&R, Barsh investigated the large double-doors leading into the adjoining room. He found that they opened easily enough, and looking inside could see nothing dangerous. Thus reassured he entered, whereupon the doors slammed shut behind him and eight vaguely insectoid mechanical golems came scuttling out of the walls to rip him into mincemeat.
Alarmed by the sudden closure of the doors, not to mention the shrieks of agony from within, the rest of our Gallant Band rushed to the rescue. Justin opened the doors to see Barsh's (again) unconscious body lying in the middle of the floor oozing blood from a multitude of wounds. He entered to render assistance to his fallen comrade, and the whole process was repeated, with Justin the target this time instead of the comatose Barsh. Fortunately, Vallana was right at hand to wrench open the doors again, and force the critters back into the walls.
A confusing period ensued, in which Vallana somehow got cought between the doors as they tried to close; fortunately her exquisite Dwarvish plate armour prevented her from being crushed like a bug, but so firmly wedged was she that it took the combined efforts of everybody else, using bronze crowbars magicked up by Pandora out of miscellaneous trash lying about, to pop her free. Of course, as soon as she was out of the way the doors swung shut and the attacks began again, but this time with everyone (except Jim) inside the room.
Pandora managed to stave off the otherwise certain grisly death of everyone by casting her Pratfall spell, turning the floor into a slick, greasy sheet that the critters (and everyone else) couldn't get any purchase on. Vallana bellowed at Jim through the doors to open them, and eventually managed to intimidate him enough to overcome his innate cowardice.
Investigation of the opposite doors revealed that they opened easily inwards as long as the first set of doors were shut, and that they also inhibited the attacks of the bug-golems. By a cunning relay system, everyone managed to get through the room into the hall beyond without being chopped up, leaving Vallana to bring up the rear in her impervious plate-mail.
Justin and Tallis are wearing rusty chainmail hauberks, open helms, shields and have found a couple of swords in usable condition. Justin is also wearing some padded under-garments magicked up by Pandora (total DEF 5) while Tallis is still in her fluorescent fairy spandex under her chain (total DEF 4).
Once through, the party found themselves at one end of a long, wide hall, far larger than their puny lanterns could reveal and liberally scattered with the remains of those killed in the long-ago massacre. Justin and Tallis went fossicking among the musty bones and managed to come up with enough scraps of reasonably serviceable armour to re-equip themselves in an ad-hoc fashion. Then everyone settled down for some well-deserved rest before proceeding.
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